All things Beaver Mill

hello I'm new to the group would to now if any one has copy of the manual for the balding beaver Mk5

Hi all! I’m refurbishing a beaver mk1 bvrp . I’m after some photos of leadscrew at nut end . The issue I have is at some time some one has fitted a piece of .500” stud into end of leadscrew presumably due to damage. I’m hopping to find out how the radial thrust bearings on leadscrew mounting on end of table are adjusted at ball crank in behind bracket. Ideally a photo of end of leadscrew on left underside of table showing arrangement at back of ball crank/leadscrew bracket would be ideal. I’m assuming there must have been a portion of larger diameter thread with couple of lock nuts on . Any help/ advice would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks, Brian skidmore.

Hi mine has two nuts on the left side but they are not underneath. My lead screw has also been repaired at some point ( badly) but it does work ok. I also re ended the right side with a piece of .500 bar which I bored and tapped 7/16 unc and locktighted in, which did make a job of it. I will put some pictures of the left hand ball handle showing the adjustment. I have the power feed gearbox built up and ready to go back on so I will get some pics of that too and put them on this page

Hi Mark, Thankyou for reply and pictures, obviously seems a bit of a week point on these mk1’s, pretty much same story with this one. I was lucky with feed box on this one apart from a sheared bolt on top of box with enough sticking up to get hold of to remove. I notice that on left end of lead screw there appears to be the internal part of a ball bearing, which may have been used as a spacer to pack out screw, or I wonder if may have been a bearing. The reason why I’m curious is that on mine the two lead screw carrier brackets are not the same, one has a recess on back, I assumed was to accommodate drive sleeve/gear when table fully wound over. But seeing the left hand end of your lead screw I wondered if it may have been a bearing pocket and that carrier bracket may have been on left side of table. In the past when end broke off lead screw I wondered weather things may have been swapped around for whatever reason just to get machine working again. So I’m interested to now if yours has recess on one of carrier brackets and if so which end of table it was fitted? On mine the left hand ball crank had been bored through and some material taken off of face next to dial so that a slim nut was fitted to adjust end float with two small radial thrust bearings either side of bracket. I’m sorting this machine out for a good friend off mine and have rebuilt head successfully, and this forum has been such a great help as no manual/parts books available for this model. If this was my machine I would probably consider a ball screw conversion and beef up end of leadscrew and thrust adjustment. I guess that’s why there where mk2’s and so forth. I own Bridgeport Witch I rebuilt some years ago and had collum,knee,saddle and table reground and scrapped by Braithwaite’s up in Yorkshire, which was worth every penny. 20 years ago. I must admit I like some aspects of this Beaver as so much more robust and rigid than the Bridgeport particularly the int 40 taper. Thanks for you prompt reply again Mark,
Best regards, Brian Skidmore

Hi Brian I’ve added another 5 photos of the lead screw if they are of any help

The MkII has a shear pin on one of the leadscrews. I can now see why!

Don't suppose anyone here could email me a pdf manual & parts diagrams? Recently picked up a mk2 vbrp that suffers from a seized quill. (Previous owner left the poor thing outside). Would be helpful when i strip the back gear gearbox as I suspect their may be some moisture lurking within

[email protected]

Cheers.

https://onedrive.live.com/?cid=547FE296ECFD561F&id=547FE296ECFD561F%211426&parId=547FE296ECFD561F%21189&o=OneUp

You seem to already have a huge number of manuals. Do you get bored with machines quickly and have to change them often?

Very much appreciated, will certainly help get the mill back to working order

Hi all. I have a beaver mill mk5. It is fully working as a manual machine but it has a Anilam 3000m cnc control fitted but I am having problems with it. The machine has an air operation quick change tool holder. What I am looking for is some of the mounting fittings for the top of the tooling. Dose anyone have any for sale or know where I can get some.
thanks

mark

They are called a 'pull stud'.

Put 'Beaver pull stud' into Google.

You will find:

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/beaver-nc5-pull-stud-dimensions-153752/

Mr Hood is on the mig welding forum if you need to ask him further questions.

https://spares.xyzmachinetools.com/Special-Pull-Studs-40-Beaver-V5Nc5/product/4829/79931-010/

https://www.madmodder.net/index.php?topic=12928.0

Reading the above, it seems there may be two types, for earlier and later machines, so check well before spending.

Hi all - I am also new to the group. I have a beaver PAL mill which has no back gear, and the all-belt head. The rear layshaft in the head is pressed into the eccentric (for tightening the belt), the pulley set is then riding on two LS9 bearings on that shaft, according to the drawings. The pulley set can't come out through the top of the head casting, so I'm wondering how to disassemble this thing? Mine has got quite noisy, so I'd like to replace those bearings.

Also - I have a fair amount of wear on my splines I can see comparing the unworn area to the worn area that the lands are almost a millimetre narrower. Are there any other options than the one shown earlier in this thread? The wear is worst at the bottom (quill retracted), and lessens as you go up (quill projected). So any kind of backlash limiter is only going to work at one point.

Thanks,

Craig

I've never seen a PAL head in real life, only the drawings in the assorted manuals that Tony's lathe site has got. I'm guessing that one has to get the centre pulley and motor out of the way, followed by the spindle pulley and its bits, then unbolt the rear pulley from its shaft, remove the shaft and eccentric out of the top and finally manoeuvre the rear pulley through the front part of the side door holes.

It will come out, since they got it in, but there is probably a way that works and many ways that don't. The Mk1 head has got a definite knack to assembling it as well, but after the first half dozen times it becomes intuitive!

As to the splines, is it the spindle splines that show the wear or the drive bush's internal splines? In either case one might need to make a new drive bush, but in the former case, one would need to either make a new spindle or use a surface grinder, shaper or mill to cut back the good parts of the spindle splines until they were thinner, but all the same width. Then send both bits off for heat treating.

A spring loaded backlash eliminator might work, but one would need to find space for it, possibly by making a spacer plate between the head and the pulley box.

Same problem with my MK2 VBRP Beaver mill. The splines rattle like a good 'un but I couldn't tell you which pair it is that have the worst play. I got all the bearings, etc to tilt the head over 90 deg, get the spindle out and start going through it to see if there is anything I can do about. it's now a couple of years later, I'm much closer to 70 and feeling less an less able to tackle it (

Well after a bit of time effort and money my VBRP is about quiet, I replaced all of the spindle bearings and the two large bearings that support the back gear shaft, I think these were the noisy ones. I also managed to get a better spline mesh by facing off the drive side splines so it meshed deeper. I spaced the toothed pulley down by a similar amount to keep everything level.

So it’s about rattle free and not much other noise for once! I’ve replaced my of singe phase motor with a new 3 phase motor and new VFD along with a 3 phase feed motor and VFD.

so it’s ready for another 50 years!

After a bit of use the feed gearbox is still noisy , but how do you take it off easily? The motor is off and I have removed the two screws on the front (on the right side) and the four screws on the back (left side). The back will come off a couple of mm until it hits the cross slide nut assembly, this is difficult to remove as it has dowels in it preventing it sliding along out of the way.

The main box will come out about 1mm then I think some gears are starting to catch on something, so is the answer to take off the table?
thanks Ian

With the Mk1 gearbox:-

You need to take the table off to remove a couple of other screws on the top of the gearbox that you can't get at with the table on:-

I can't remember if you also need to remove the left/right clutch fork shaft as well to get at one of the screws Probably not.

After that, the gearbox will come off complete and you can get the back off it.

Edited By Mark Rand on 20/01/2022 19:36:40

Thanks Mark, it’s all apart now, I think I will get away with some new bushes, the one on the input shaft is nicely worn.

The worm and wheel look ok I’ll just remove a few sharp edges.

ian

Ian,

> facing off the drive side splines so it meshed deeper.

> I spaced the toothed pulley down by a similar amount

That sounds very interesting. Do you have any sketches or dimensions and references to the part diagrams please?. If there's a short cut to getting rid of some of the spline rattle I'm up for it, but I don't quite follow what you've done. Thanks.